A Cure for the Common Blah

Greetings, folks! Once again I feel I must offer my apologies. My work is kicking my ass something fierce and as a result I’ve nothing terribly witty or profound to offer (not that I do usually but…).

You see, stress has been running a bit high. A new and particularly sneaky malware hit my work computer and I’ve had to do my job in a rather piecemeal way.

Isn’t it funny how a malfunctioning computer can effectively stop your life in its tracks? You don’t realize how much you depend on it until it’s not there. So, to escape to stress and strain of the digital world I went to visit my parents this weekend. That, in and of itself, isn’t unusual as I visit them quite a lot. The great part about visiting this time was that we all decided to trek down to my parent’s pond despite the ground being of a consistency akin to oatmeal.

So there we were, muddy and slightly chilled, watching my father skim algae off the surface of the pond, hoping to catch a glimmer or glow of orange from the (probably dead) fish. I can’t quite remember what led up to it, but I ended up with a large stick in my hand and, absent mindedly, began hitting it against a nearby tree. That action set off a chain reaction.

I know that all of the people who drove by that afternoon must believe that we are a family of lunatics. All three of us were down in the woods, by a muddy pond, hitting trees with pieces of fallen wood and having a right jolly joke at the expense of Bigfoot researchers. And all of us were laughing like maniacs.

And you know what? I don’t care. I was having a ball down there with my parents. We laughed at just about everything that happened, from my comedic attempts to split a piece of wood to the cat stumbling ungracefully while walking on the beams of the gazebo.

So what if everyone thinks we’re a bunch of freaks. Laughter really is the best therapy. And the cheapest, as long you don’t mind suffering a loss of dignity.